U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,405 describes hardeners for epoxy resins. These hardeners are based on epoxidized polyols containing aromatic and aliphatic structural elements, almost all the epoxy groups being reacted with a polyamine to form an intermediate product and the primary amine groups of the intermediate product subsequently being reacted with a monoepoxide or a monocarboxylic acid to form the end product. This end product is a hardener for water-based epoxy resin systems.